A Genuine Mistake
by BlackroseCo
Summary: When Tsutomu is forced to move to Boston, Massachusets, he and Birdy end up helping the Leverage team work to take out some of Christina Revi's most notorious henchmen.
1. Chapter 1

Tsutomu was not impressed with his parents, mostly over the decision that was forced on him. His parents got the great idea, after getting a pamphlet from a college in the U.S, that they should send him away from all of his friends to go to college. Birdy didn't seem to mind, getting out of his parents house would be a relief of pressure off of her for always getting in fights with the local alien population in Tokyo. So, he was given a packed bag, a plane ticket to Ballenger, Massachusetts, and a kiss on the cheek. Birdy was no help at all through out the whole thing, since she had gotten in the habit of making record breaking naps. The current one happened to be on the 32nd hour, and he was worried that Birdy had actually disappeared.

Tsutomu got off of the plane, and walked over to grab his luggage. 5 people were coming in the other direction, and he accidently bumped into a tall skinny blond woman in a dark blue blouse, and a pair of shorts that were almost pants. Birdy started grumbling about losing something important, and finally came slowly awake. She seemed a little groggy, and Tsutomu couldn't help but start talking to her.

"Birdy, you need to start taking this more serious. I'm worried that you won't wake up sometime." Tsutomu said quietly to himself, trying not to alienate everybody in this world.

"Hmm, you really need to start taking it less serious. When are we going to get some fresh air, I need to go through my workout regime, or we'll both be in trouble." Birdy grumpily said as she finally gained consciousness.

Tsutomu reached in to grab tute/the cell phone robot thing and found out that it was lost. Birdy snapped to full wakefulness and took control of Tsutomu.

"Did you put Tute in your luggage?" Birdy seemed to be a little nervous, and Tsutomu was already trying to tell her to let him have some control.

"No, it was in my pocket the whole time. Maybe I dropped it. Let me look for it before you start to panic." Tsutomu said as he finally gained control back and started look for his cell phone.

"Maybe it was stolen, America has quite the reputation for pick-pockets." Tsutomu said as he remembered the blonde woman that had bumped into him. He started running back the way he came, looking around for his cell-phone. He spotted the blonde woman, and run back up to her.

"Have you seen a blue and white cell phone, kind of shaped like this" Tsutomu said as he shaped it in the air. She gave him a funny look, sighed and handed the phone back.

"Sorry, thought it looked too cool." She said, as she looked a little sad. Tsutomu wasn't sure about how sane she was, but he needed to go get his luggage from the rack before it got claimed as abandoned. He rushed off talking quietly to Birdy about how he still wasn't sure about this whole "college in America thing".

Parker, the blonde woman that had nicked his cell phone, was really intrigued by this Japanese youth. Unless they had special training of some sort, nobody realized that they had been pick pocketed, especially by her. She turned around and started following the guy that she was intrigued in. She followed him out of the terminal, and across to where she saw him enter a Taxi. The taxi sped off, and Parker was barely able to locate the taxi number before it went around a corner.

"Hardison, could you tell me where taxi number 7835 is going. There is somebody in there that I want to talk to." She said as she placed her ear mic into her ear.

"Sure thing, should I be worried about whom you want me to track down," Hardison commented while he quickly looked up the gps coordinates for the taxi.

"Nope, I just want to talk with the guy" Parker said as she walked around a corner and turned on the motorbike that was lying under a tarp there. She smirked to herself; people were always way too obvious. She'd swiped the owner's keys, after she had saw him park there earlier. She got on the bike, and sped off in the direction of the Taxi.

"Ok girl, that taxi is currently on route to the local community college. You know where that is right." Hardisons' voice came over nonchalantly.

"I do, by" Parker raced forward trying to beat the Taxi to the college. She got there just as the taxi pulled up to the administration building. The young Japanese fellow got out of the vehicle, and it seemed like he was quietly talking to somebody about something. Odd that he didn't have a phone on Parker thought as a couple of ideas filtered through her head. She waited outside until he came back out, his backpack just a little bigger and started walking in the opposite direction. Parker kept getting more and more intrigued, sure that he was a thief that was trying to steal from the college. If it weren't for the fact that the college was so close to McRory's bar, she would have been fine with it, but since this was in her territory she was having problems with it. She parked the bike, and left a note on it that had the drivers license of the person who owned it. She set off at a quick pace to try to catch the would be thief and tell him to give back the stuff that he had stolen. She almost caught up to him when he turned a corner and just disappeared.

Tsutomu was glad that all the hassle that came with getting his textbooks, and getting everything set for classes was over. He was still worried about getting any friends; also that Birdy would ruin any chances that he could gain of making friends. His parents had negotiated a small apartment that was only a few blocks from campus, so all he had to do now was get settled into his apartment.

"That blonde girl that we bumped into earlier is following us you know." Birdy commented after they turned a corner onto a quiet street. Tsutomu started worrying a little, what if she wanted to shut me up.

"Birdy, how about we switch for most of the rest of the way" Tsutomu said nervously. He knew that Birdy was much better equipped to take on anything that they could possibly face in this area.

"Sure, I need to stretch out a bit anyway. Turn into that alley real quick." Tsutomu quickly entered a squat dirty little alley and the change took place. Standing in Tsutomu's place was a rather tall girl with pink and white hair, and a rather flattering skintight suit that almost looked like a sort of armor. As soon as she changed she launched herself up of the roof. It was a good thing it was getting about evening, they didn't want to attract any more attention than they needed. Birdy let out a squeal of delight as she finally got to stretch out her muscles after the long hibernation that she had been doing. After an hour or so she finally set her self down in an alley across the street from the place where his apartment was.

"Did your parents realize that your apartment was located above a bar" Birdy commented noticing the big Irish "John McRory's" sign that was located just on the side of the building.

"Nope, and I doubt I'm going to tell them. They just said that they had found the coziest little apartment they had found. Comes with free Wi-Fi, and utilities as well, would have been better if there was a meal plan involved, but they said I had earn my own money for food. Probably because of the amount of food that you go through in one sitting, we might be going hungry for a little while until I can locate a job that allows us to eat." Tsutomu sighed at that last bit. He hiked up his backpack, knowing that all of his other stuff had already been delivered. He went up the steps, and knocked on the landlord's door, a skinny black guy opened up, and gave him his keys. A perky face poked around the corner and nearly tackled the landlord; the blonde woman was here as well. Such great fortune I have today, Tsutomu just sighed again. As soon as the woman saw him she straightened up and tackled Tsutomu, she reached up to his ear and started searching it.

"What are you doing", Tsutomu was so shocked that he had lapsed back into Japanese for a little while. He quickly got up, and the woman stopped him.

"I want to know what your doing here, and you need to give back the stuff you stole from the college." She said casually.

Tsutomu barely made out most of what she said, he looked up at the landlord for help, but he just had an equally confused look on his face. "I didn't steal anything, and my apartment is right down the hall. I just moved here from Japan to go to college." Tsutomu was getting a little bit frustrated. This girl was nearly as bad as Birdy was sometimes.

She backed off at that, and the landlord apologized and told me his name was Hardison. He also said that he wasn't always in and if I had any questions just ask one of the waitresses down in the bar.

Tsutomu just kept getting more and more confused, and hungry as his stomache made a very large grumbling noise. Tsutomu excused himself, and stalked over to his apartment.

Hardison still couldn't believe that Parker had jumped the poor kid that had just moved into his building. He had to question her about the whole situation.

"Parker, what was that all about?" he said as he shut his door and they headed over to Nate's apartment.

" He seemed like a pretty experienced guy to me, noticed that I had snatched his cell phone, and escaped very easily when I chased after him. Thought I had lost him. He has more experience than you seem to think." Parker said a little ashamed, but not too much. She was going to keep an eye on the new guy in the building. Especially since their recent mark was Japanese fellow that had quite a few connections with a particularly nasty group over in Japan. Just finding out the leader of the sect had given them trouble. Christina Revi was their next big mark, ever since she had placed some of her men into the local area to start kidnapping and experimenting on children.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello all potential readers, here is the next installment in Birdy's adventures with the team from Leverage. I should get some actual action into the next chapter. Now that we have a bad guy, I can finally get the story going. I'm actually really enjoying this. I hope that this turns out to be a really good story.

Nate looked up as he was walking up the stairs to see a short Japanese kid walk down the stairs. He'd never scene the kid before, and he was wondering what Hardison was up to. The 24-year-old hacker had a little tendency to surprise Nate every now and then when it came to the building that they lived in. Nate waved and said hi as the kid passed him, still concerned about not being able to find any new clients recently. It was like the whole area had fallen quiet after the recent incident with the dam system farther up north. Nobody wanted to catch the attention of the wolves hiding in the closet, and Nate was just fine with that. With the break he had finally been able to relax, and really try to break his drinking habit. He was currently trying to take care of the recent withdrawal that had flared up the night before. He continued on to his apartment, and opened the door. Hardison was lying on his couch drinking the orange soda that he always seemed to have. The hacker never seemed to drink anything other than the stuff, and he took up half of Nate's refrigerator with about 30 bottles of it.

" I see that you have someone moving in that empty apartment across the hall." Nate said as he sat down at his desk to review the list of potential marks that the team could possibly take on in the future.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that, there seems to be more to this kid than we originally thought." Hardison said as he looked up from his computer.

"The kid was able to sense Parker's lift earlier, and completely escaped her when she decided to trail after him. Also there seems to a bunch of shady events that have happened around the kid for the last year or so." Hardison seemed a little worried, he was probably beating himself up due to the screening process that he put almost everybody in the vicinity through.

"What kind of shady events are we talking about?" Nate commented, finally finding something at least semi-interesting that would distract him from his headache.

Hardison typed on his keyboard for a few seconds, and then started reading off a list of events. "He was interrogated repeatedly by the police over in Japan a couple of times. He always seems to appear at the scene of big property damage, the biggest being a water treatment plant that had to go out of business due to a massive discharge that took out the electricity all over Tokyo. He might have a connection with the yakuza over in Japan, what with the time that he was hit by a local leader of the gang. Other than that he just seems to be a normal average kid, got average grades, that is until about a year ago. His parents were scared of all of the accidents in the area, and decided to send him to a college here in the states." Hardison had a knack for describing everything about a person with out taking a single breath.

Nate had to think about this for a second before he could make a decision. There wasn't much they could do unless "shady events" started occurring in the neighborhood.

"There probably won't be much of a problem at the moment if he is connected with anybody. He will probably need time to get accustomed to the area, and build a believable character before he starts building any framework. Plus he's just a kid, don't worry about it for the moment." Nate said as he got up from his couch to try to find some painkiller for his headache.

Tsutomu got the next morning off rolling with a resounding crash as he woke up just as he was falling off of the bed. This was probably Birdy's fault, there seemed to a multitude of ways in which she tried to relieve her boredom. She was just glad to be away from the nagging voice of the agent that always seemed to have another thing planned for her alias as Arita Shion the famous Japanese idol. He decided that Birdy was probably feeling a little too bored and it was probably best if he gave her his day off. She would probably just laze around, but Tsutomu was still tired and he didn't want to bother with doing anything.

"Hey Birdy, how about you have the day for yourself?" Tsutomu said as he got himself back up on the bed.

"Really, I would so love to be able to go see the area. Too bad you didn't bring any of your sister's clothes, Arita Shion's wardrobe is too recognizable. Especially for your old dorky friends." Birdy seemed to be on a role today, and she wasn't about to let me sleep at all today.

"Just remember that any clothes you get will come out of our food money." Tsutomu responded shortly. They switched places and Birdy went over to the window jumped across to the building opposite of theirs and jumped down to the ground changing into civilian clothes as she landed. Birdy walked out of the alleyway and started to trot up the street looking into windows looking for any clothes that she thought would look good on her. She wasn't paying any attention in where she was going and she ended up running into a rather tall man with almost shoulder length brown hair. They both fell over each other, and Tsutomu grumbled a little in a sleepy slur of miss-understandable words.

"I'm sorry, I just wasn't watching where is was going." Birdy was the first to recover from being knocked over. She stood up and helped the other guy up off of the ground.

"No, the fault would be all mine," the stranger responded as he took her hand.

"We both seem to have other things on our minds, why don't we talk about it over a drink." This guy was fast, and Tsutomu woke up fast when he heard the word drink. Normally Birdy's status as a star kept people away from romantic entanglements, but they weren't surrounded by a whole ton of fans, and the contact could end up somewhere. Birdy just might do anything, especially since she had technically been told she couldn't work until Tsutomu's body got back from Echonos Quill.

"My your fast, what would your name be by chance." Birdy was getting into this, maybe it wouldn't end up so bad with a little bit of human contact Birdy might learn some responsibility for once.

"I'm probably not the only one that is fast here. My name would be Elliot Spencer by the way, and yours would be," responded the stranger.

"Arita Shion", Birdy replied without thinking about it. Tsutomu face palmed, there was no way that this wasn't going to end well.

"Arita huh, such a lovely sounding name. I know a great place around the corner, why don't we go hang out there." Elliot was doing everything but sweeping Birdy off of her feet, and Tsutomu knew that the next few hours would be very amusing.

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Across town at the same time, the local Irish mob had been having a hard time lately. Mostly due to Nate's team, although they had yet to realize who had been foiling all of their well planned schemes. They were still trying to figure out how their last scheme had fallen apart, and they were desperately trying to come up with funds.

They all looked up as a large man with short black hair with a rather impressive suit on smashed the door in and crossed the threshold into the warehouse. All of the people in the room jumped up and trained their guns on the intruder. He continued walking up to the first guy and introduced himself.

"Hello, my name is Gomez. I would love to get your help with something my mistress would like to get done." Gomez seemed to have no emotions at all as he spoke this. Every one in the room was still so shocked to see the guy walk into the warehouse so nonchalantly that none of them could articulate themselves enough to finally say something in reply.

"What kind of business would your mistress be willing to offer, and how much does it pay," replied the nearest mobster.

"Oh, there will be pay beyond your wildest dreams. You just need to follow the orders of an associate of mine; he will contact you when you are needed. He will also be the one that will compensate you for your efforts." Gomez turned around at that, dropped a card on the floor, and left as quickly as he had entered.

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Nate walked down to the bar, to see what the new coffee machine could potentially offer his headache. He noticed that Elliot was flirting with some college looking girl, and it seemed that the two had more in common then they had originally thought. He walked over to the bar and smiled as a red haired waitress walked up on the other side of the bar.

"Mr. Ford what would be your fantasy today," the waitress said as she put a cup of coffee in front of him.

"Oh, I don't imagine that there could be much you could do for me. I see that you've finally got my timing down." Nate replied as he lifted his cup up to take a long swig of coffee.

A rather interesting looking guy sat down next to him and ordered an entire bottle of the bar's finest whiskey. The guy looked like he had just recently come into a lot of cash. He had a brand new very expensive suit on, and he had quite amount of ego showing.

"Rather interesting that you're sitting at the bar drinking coffee, when there is so much intriguing brews to be had on the shelf." The stranger took a long swig straight from the bottle.

"I've found that there seems to be more to my day when it's not being seen through goggles of some kind." Nate found the character of this guy intriguing for some reason, although he was slowly starting to lose it with the amount of alcohol that he was currently consuming.

"Hmm, I guess there is a point to that, but there is just no fun unless scene through those exact same goggles." He took another drink from the bottle. He was really letting himself go at the moment, and there seemed to be no restraint involved at all. It was like he was scared that the world was going to end, and he was getting himself in as much trouble as he possibly could.

"I have some time on my hands at the moment, would you care to elaborate on your problems," said Nate as he watched his would be drinking companion. That bottle of would probably take away the withdrawals that he had been plagued with for the last week or so.

"My problems, my problems seem to be that an old contact of mine came in and offered me the job of a lifetime and quite a lot of money up front. My friend from Japan told me that I could go have the time of my life until I was needed to do something for her." The stranger was getting more and more free with his information as he reached the halfway point on the bottle.

"Who would your old contact be," pried Nate. He was beginning to lose interest in the gin in the mans hand, and was starting to get more interested in what was being said due to the gentleman next to him being tanked.

"Oh, only the most beloved mother of the Society of Purifying Flame. The wonderful Christina Revi." The man drawled out rather loudly, Nate was even more intrigued. He may have just found his next mark.

Birdy had been having a great time hanging out with one Elliot Spencer all afternoon. She had found out rather quickly that Elliot big muscles were attributed to a lot of training and hard work, and she could appreciate that in a guy. They had ended up talking about sports and other events. They shared a few beers, and they had laughed about a bunch of random jokes that Elliot had come up with on the spot.

Elliot had looked up once when a man in his late 40's had come in and sat at the bar and started drinking coffee. Birdy could sense a connection between the two, they were probably friends and Elliot was keeping an eye on him. Things went well until the guy next to Elliot's friend started to get a little rowdy. He started spouting something about a religion that he was in, and then he drawled out the name of Christina Revi. Birdy froze in her seat, Elliot was distracted by the loud stranger, so he didn't notice that Birdy had gotten out of her seat and picked up the guy by the front of his expensive suit.

"Could you tell me what you were just telling your friend here about a Christina Revi?" said Birdy slowly to make sure the guy could get it through his intoxicated brain.


	3. Chapter 3

"Could you tell me what you were just telling your friend here about a Christina Revi?" said Birdy slowly to make sure the guy could get it through his intoxicated brain.

Tsutomu was as surprised as everyone else in the room was, seeing how fast Birdy had launched herself out of her seat had unsettled anyone that had been currently watching the conflict. Tsutomu wasn't entirely sure that the best idea at the moment was to break their cover, and wasn't entirely happy with Birdy for deciding to break her imposed break. Though half of him thought that trouble would of found them sooner or later, it had to come sooner though, a lot sooner.

Birdy's gaze was locked firmly on the intoxicated patron of the Irish bar.

"Do I need to repeat myself?" Birdy insisted as the patrons' eyes nearly rolled out of his head as Birdy started to shake him.

"I'm not fraid of any pretty girl, Revi would kill me if I told someone," the guy must of not been as drunk as Tsutomu had originally thought. Although it was probably going to get worse when the ¾ bottle of scotch finally worked itself into his blood.

After hearing this Birdy's eyes widened, and Tsutomu could tell that the guy was starting to get on Birdy's last nerve. Birdy's date decided then to try to separate Birdy from the man. He walked up and tried to take the now nearly unconscious victim of Birdy's wrath away from her. Birdy's grip didn't even budge and Elliot's eyes widened as he realized that his date was actually way stronger than he ever thought she could be. Birdy pulled her victim away and stalked towards the door, before she got there the other gentlemen at the bar started to talk.

"You seem to have a rather big problem with this Cristina Revi person, from what it sounds like you have had problems with her in the past." The gentleman had caught Birdy's attention. She turned a 180 to stare at the man, trying to talk her out of going bezerk. In her mind, this man just wanted to take her whole reason for being on this backwater planet.

"Just hear me out, it sounds like Cristina Revi has done you a serious wrong. If you could calm down and think about it, maybe if you got some help, it would be easier to actually find her." Birdy gave him a funny look, the thought had crossed her mind before, but every time she had gotten help from someone else it hadn't necessarily ended well. She also didn't want to get help from humans, which was the last thing she wanted to happen. To have a bunch of human deaths on her record would certainly get her placed into menial labor on her home world.

("Maybe you should take his advice, what he's saying is rather sound. Although I'm not too sure if we can trust him at all, what credentials could he have.") Tsutomu commented after a few seconds of stunned silence from Birdy.

"What makes you think that you would be qualified to help? This is easily way above your heads, and I don't need to be slowed down by a couple of people who don't have any business getting involved in my business," replied Birdy, she seemed just a little too upset when she had said it though.

"I'm a thief, and I specialize in taking down the particularly rich and powerful who feel that they can use their money for their own good. Me and my team of specialists provide leverage for those who can't do so for themselves." The gentleman then walked up to Birdy and introduced himself as Nate Ford.

Elliot couldn't believe that this girl that he had picked up on the street was actually going to become a client. He was also rather surprised by the hidden strength that this girl possessed; it was like pushing against an unforgiving wall when he had tried to get her to back down. Not only that, the way she had dragged the man around like a toy had seriously gave him doubts on how well he would do against her. One thing or another, he really felt that he needed to stay on her good side.

They were up in Nate's apartment looking at the unconscious and tied up body of the man who had been an unwitting patron at the bar downstairs only a half an hour ago. Arita was walking back and forth testily; almost seeming to have a dialogue in her head, trying to decide that what Nate had said would work.

"Why should I rely on thieves, that seems to be a contradiction of terms," said Arita as she finally sat down in a chair that was opposite of the couch that Nate and Elliot were currently sitting on.

Nate thought about it for a second and started into one a well-practiced speech of his.

"In most occasions that would be extremely true, but it isn't the case here. My team and I have been working to bring peace to many wronged individuals. These individuals have been seriously wronged by members of the rich and powerful, and there is nothing that can normally done to stop them. The regular routes that these individuals take usually end up with more heartache than it's worth. That's where my team comes in; we do what the authorities can't do. We take down the people that have too much control over other people. In other words like I said before, we provide Leverage.

"Ok, I can see your point, but what you would be facing is something that I would rather face on my own. What sort of help could you possibly be to me at the moment? Especially since I have a lead on the whereabouts of where Cristina Revi now with the help of this guy." Arita responded, pointing to the man in the chair to point out her statement.

"Ah, but you only have one informant about the whereabouts of this Cristina. We can help you gain more information, and you can decide if you need our help farther down the road." Nate was just as happy to let her mull over this little bit of info.

Arita thought about this for a moment, and then sighed. " I will have to think about this.. Can I get back to you later?" She walked out the door passing Sophie at the door.

"I thought we agreed that we weren't going to invite clients into our HQ," Sophie's voice came from the entryways hallway.

Birdy's thoughts were in a rampage as she stalked down the hallway, down the steps and off to the nearest local food place. She was willing to drown her confusion in a large amount of food, and anything that could provide her with a full stomach. Tsutomu for once was quiet; seemingly he had as much to think about as Birdy was having. The nearest place for to eat was a rather old diner with advertizing for the towns biggest meal in under thirty minutes. If you could finish almost 10 pounds of food in the specified amount of time, prize was that you got the food free plus the entire pot of money from all of the failed attempts before hand. The pot was now worth about 1500 dollars, and Birdy claimed all of it after a record time of 8 minutes 29 seconds. The owner was so shocked that he just nodded, and handed over the bucket of cash. Birdy almost bounced out the door ready to spend the cash on a new wardrobe.

"So do you think that you're going to take their help?" Tsutomu finally asked as Birdy was window shopping, looking for anything that she thought would make her look good, but also have a completely different look than what her alias would usually wear. She really didn't want her agent finding her, it always seemed like she was able to find another little performance fro her alias to do. She would be thrilled to put Arita Shion through a tour of the east coast of America.

"I really don't know, we are by ourselves for the moment, no support from my side at all. If they only gave me the chance to put some serious work behind it, I could gain some serious leads on Christina Revi." Birdy replied as she walked into a promising clothing store.

"Birdy! I still can't believe that you have no respect for my normal life. Although, after what I've seen of what Revi has done, I'd be willing to look away for some amount of time. That is if you actually had support, I think it could be too dangerous otherwise." Tsutomu sighed at he noticed some of the prices involved with the clothing that Birdy had found after a few seconds of browsing the store.

"Sure, sure, just let me think about it a little bit more," replied Birdy as she nearly bounced into the dressing room with her recent selections.

Maybe action in the next one, I am currently having trouble figuring out how to put the whole thing together. This chapter may seem a little wordy, and if there were faults I would love to hear about them.


	4. Chapter 4

"Alright, are next mark's name is Harold Wright, a rather prominent figure in the U.S's tourist industry. He has made millions dollars from his support of many businesses throughout the country that purposefully draw tourists into them. Many of these businesses are just ways for him to launder money at, probably one of the easiest ways to do so. Paying members of his staff to pose as tourists and spend the money on any tourist based items that catch their fancy. He just recently took over a rather large park just over in Boston dedicated to the founding fathers." Hardison was on a roll as usual as he rolled out the facts for a new mark that Nate had accidently found when he was strolling through the aforementioned park and had noticed the eviction of the park's former owner.

"Where does the money come from that he launders?" asked Nate after a second of thought.

"That's the thing, I can't tell where any of it comes from. The money seems to come in from an invisible account, and there is no signs at all of who the account belongs to." Hardison replied before he took a swig from his ever-present bottle of orange soda.

"Anything else that could be interesting to the court?" yawned Parker as she put her head down on the table. She had been rather occupied for the last few nights with a pet project of hers.

Hardison gave her a concerned look; he worried about her midnight escapades. Especially since she had somehow found out about the art of being a ninja.

"He somehow has some interest in idols," replied Hardison as he looked at his computer to find the needed info.

"Ooooh, does this mean we can steal a few statues? I have been wanting to for such a long time now." Sophie said as her eyes lit up.

"Yeah like the last time we tried to steal a statue worked out so well," muttered Parker.

"No, it seems he has a thing for Japanese pop idols. He almost always goes to any concerts that are placed here in the United States. Lately he has been on face book and twitter, confessing that he has a new favorite idol named Arita Shion." Hardison looked up and noticed the odd looks that Nate and Elliot were giving each other.

Nate spoke up first, " Could you show us some pictures of Arita Shion?" Hardison typed on his computer and then transferred the pictures to the big screen.

Elliot face palmed as soon as he saw the picture. He looked at Nate who had a rather large smile on his face.

Nate chuckled a little and then started talking. " It just so happens that Arita Shion is here in town. We just need to find her, Hardison could you please start searching for her. Parker get some sleep, and Sophie get ready to become an agent for one of Japan's most popular idols."

Tsutomu had just finished up his first day of classes and walked back to his apartment. It had been a few days since the wildness at the bar, and Birdy had slowly thought about working with a wily bunch of humans. She was currently asleep, as it had become her most recent past time. Even though Tsutomu did let her have her fun, at least what he could control of it. He was rather worried that she would lose herself from not having something to keep her occupied.

He reached the building his apartment was in, climbed up the stairs and started walking down the hallway. Next thing he knew he was quickly grabbed from behind and had a rather cloyingly sweet smelling cloth held forcefully over his face. Tsutomu's last thoughts before he blacked out were that Birdy would not be happy when she woke up.

…. Tsutomu woke up at Birdy's urging, drowsily trying to figure out where he was. He tried to move his arms up to rub away the sleep from his eyes, but found that he couldn't. His arms were tied up rather tightly, and his body was having a hard time trying to figure out which direction was up. His stomach rebelled against him for a few seconds and then settled back down.

"What have you been up to while I was sleeping?" questioned Birdy as she tried to take full stock of the situation.

"D..d..don't know," stuttered Tsutomu as he tried to respond.

"Well try to open your eyes and give both of us a look at our current situation." Said Birdy a little testily; she did not like Tsutomu getting caught in any sort of hostage situation. Probably something about not being able to switch places, thought Tsutomu slowly.

Tsutomu opened his eyes to find himself in the same apartment that Birdy had been in the other day to talk to Nate and his group of friends. Two people were sitting at a counter in front of him. Tsutomu realized they were the same people he had met on the first day that he was in America.

"What's going on?" asked Tsutomu groggily trying to gain the couples attention. They both looked over and Parker the blonde haired woman jumped over the counter, crossed to where Tsutomu was sitting and put her face as close to his as she could without touching. She had a very unsettling stare that woke Tsutomu up faster than cold water ever could. There was just something in those eyes that said insane, and Tsutomu was worried that she would prove it.

"You seem to be tied up at the moment," said Parker very quietly with a little bit of edge to it.

"What do you want with me?" Tsutomu pleaded to the guy that was still behind the counter.

"We want to know what connections you have? You have a record that is a mile wide but doesn't seem to say anything at all." Said Hardison as a response to Tsutomu's question.

"Just tell him that you're working as an temporary agent for Arita Shion as a part time job," Birdy commented. Tsutomu could tell that she had finally grown bored of the situation. Tsutomu thought that her advice was pretty sound as he was also thinking that he had better do something before Birdy did something drastic, so he repeated what Birdy said. Both of his interrogators heads popped up at this, and they looked at each other, and shrugged.

Parker got very close again, and smiled in the creepy way that only an insane person could pull off. "That's convenient, could you call Arita and get her to come here so she can come and help out with a plan of ours?" She said as she finally backed off from how close she currently was.

"Sure" replied Tsutomu as he took a relieved breath. Parker untied his bonds and Tsutomu quickly walked out of the room, into his apartment, and then let Birdy take over so she could relieve her pent up boredom.

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Nate was sitting and preparing plans for their upcoming escapade when his door almost came off of its hinges from a few pounds on the door. His reaction was to jump up and hide behind his counter with a frying pan in his hands. He wished that Elliot was here to remedy the situation. The longhaired man had quite the ability to take out a good number of men with his bare hands, usually having to fight against multiple assailants at the same time. Nate figured that his only chance of surviving any physical encounter was to surprise his assailant. So he yelled for the person to come in, since he had noticed that the lock had been snapped from the force that had been put into the door. He was thinking that the perpetrator had to have some sort of handheld battering ram, when Arita Shion walked into the room looking like she was highly inconvenienced. Nate waited until she was at the end of the counter before coming up from his position behind the counter.

"What brings you here?" he asked slowly trying to catch her attention before she decided to destroy something else. He was having a hard time comprehending how strong she must actually be to be able to do that much damage to his door.

"I need to know why a friend of mine had to be kidnapped for you to get a message to me", she responded testily.

"A friend of yours? Kidnapped? When did this happen?" Nate wasn't entirely sure how well his plans would work out, especially since Arita had a very explosive attitude.

"Yeah, he lives just across the hall from you. He tells me that Parker and Hardison kidnapped and interrogated him earlier today." Arita seemed to get more upset, and then went extremely calm. Nate was surprised at the complete change of moods, and he knew that whoever Arita said she was, she obviously had more under the surface.

Nate took a deep breath to steady himself, and then purposefully pushed his fear away. "I was looking to get a hold of you. My associates obviously felt the need to do their best to do the same. We were also concerned about what your friend was doing here in America; his past seemed a little too vague for our comfort.

Hardison was probably making sure that his other tenants were safe." By then Nate had relaxed enough to finally to talk toe to toe with the girl.

"Probably safer than having a bunch of thieves in the building. His only problem is that he's an accident magnet. As for you needing me, I would need to know what's involved for me?" Her response was just what he had been expecting.

"I need your help being a distraction for our next job, nothing grand. Our next mark happens to be rather enamored with your work." Nate said has he went back to his counter to get himself a cup of coffee.

"Hmmm, I'm not so sure. I was kind of taking a break from the singing. If you can swing it to make sure that my agent in Japan doesn't know I'm here then I'm in. As long as your really willing to give me all the info you can on Christina Revi." Arita's response was just what he had expected, and he got her number so he could call her when he had everything ready for the job.

Harold Wright was in his office working out the plans for his newest project. He wanted to be able to show the U.S just how important the tourist industry could be. He planned on making tourism profits in the U.S rise easily above the 7% of the gross profit that it made annually. His plan involved the use of dozens of relatively small towns in the southwest and turning them all into potentially lucrative ghost towns. His plan wasn't entirely set up yet, but he knew that in order for this to happen he needed to vacate entire towns before he could get started with any sort of construction.

He was daydreaming about all of the money that he could possibly get a hold of, when a very attractive and professional looking woman walked into his office. She had a certain flare about her that seemed to draw his attention to her immediately, even though he had many other pressing thoughts on his mind. She had walked in unannounced and Harold wondered why his secretary hadn't bothered to page him about the unexpected appointment. Her nametag had the name "Phoebe Morrista", and also said that she was an agent of some kind, although he could tell that she definitely wasn't with the government.

"It's to finally make your acquaintance, my name is Phoebe. I'm here to ask for your help in arranging a rather big bash for a client of mine." She sat down across from him on one of the chairs set at the opposite side of his desk.

"I'm afraid that I'm out of my own depth? Why would I possibly help your client," replied Harold.

"Because you are the only man rich enough on the Eastern seaboard, that also has an interest in Japanese music, especially since my clients name is Arita Shion. Or so your face book profile says." Phoebe's comment got Harold's mind going again. He was pretty sure that not only would he be able to meet his favorite Japanese idol, he would also be able to gain some money out of this.

"I would love to help with Arita's bash. Here's my phone number so you can call me later with the details." Harold wrote down his number, handed it to the pretty lady, and watched as she exited his office.

Elliot walked beside Arita as they walked into the big performing dome that had been rented out for the purposes of the party. He still wasn't sure how Nate's plan would work out, although he never usually did. He just did his part, and Nate's plan would fall into place. His job this time was to act as Arita's personal bodyguard, and keep everybody but Harold away from her. Arita still was an enigma to him, she was the strongest person he had ever seen, but it was well hidden under the pop star mask. As soon as she exited the limo that they had driven up in, her character had went from mysterious and foolhardy, to composed, confident, and happy go lucky.

Harold had met them as soon as they had entered the building, and was ecstatic to finally meet his favorite star in the flesh. He had handed her a gift basket that was filled with these triangle shaped rice balls. He had her autograph a few things, and then made her pose for a few really weird heart pose shots. Even though Elliot had been to Japan many times before, there were still things that threw him off every now and then. He still wasn't sure why he needed to play the bodyguard bit, just that after Arita had a one on one with Nate, Nate had felt the need to provide Arita with a little extra moral support.

The party was planned to start at the end of a rather eccentric performance by Arita. Arita got up on stage and started her first set of songs, making sure that her dance routine kept in line with the music. Elliot looked around and was considerably surprised at the crowd that had gathered for at least the concert portion of the party. The crowd had a good portion of Japanese people, but it also had quite a few others that had been purposefully invited to help public relations along.

Arita got done with her first few songs and passed it on to another group of local musicians that Arita had liked enough to allow them to become a part of the performance. She walked off stage and into the surprisingly large dressing room that had been provided for her. Elliot sat outside, and waited until Harold Wright walked up and asked to be let into the dressing room.

"Harold just entered the dressing room. Are you sure this will work?" He commented quietly out loud.

"Just relax, Arita knows her part. She seems to be a pretty believable grifter by herself." Nate's voice sounded a little harried, since his job was to get the crowd riled up. Elliot could hear him talking loudly into a mic. as he got on stage to say thanks to Harold Wright and the other supporters for the party.

Harold exited the room, and quickly made his way out on stage where he helped Nate lead the whole crowd in a cheer that would bring Arita back on stage.

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Birdy looked up as Harold walked into the room and mentally gagged. Nate had told her that she needed to keep Harold at least semi- "occupied" until the party started. She stood up as soon as he entered, ran across the room and glomped him. Birdy could hear Tsutomu snickering while he watched her make a fool of herself. Harold jumped a little when they made contact, and tried to peel her away from himself.

"Your performance was stunning as usual," he said with a flustered voice. Birdy could tell that he was not used to physical contact at all from his reaction.

"Oh, I'm so happy that you were able help put this together." Birdy had responded with her most spunky voice, and she was sure that Tsutomu would have a heart attack from the amount of laughter that was bouncing around in her head.

"I've got no problem with spending money to broaden other peoples musical interests." Harold muttered something as he turned away to get a water bottle. "Especially since none of the money is mine." It was only thanks to Birdy's hearing that she even heard that in the first place.

"Well, don't stay too long. I'll go help your promoters get the crowd ready for your next performance." After he said that, Harold walked out of the room and gave Birdy some space. Birdy pulled out he ear bud that Hardison had given her, turned it on and then started talking.

"Hardison, where does he get the money for this?"

"I still can't tell. The money he used for this came from a variety of different accounts. Each of which seem to originate mysteriously from Japan…" Hardison's pause spoke volumes as the ramifications of what he said fell on available ears.

"Anyway girl, you need to get back on stage before they hold the DJ at

gunpoint." Birdy had to smirk at this, since it was his life at stake after all.

Birdy hurried out of her dressing room after putting the final touches on her outfit. She ran towards the stage and accidently bumped into somebody. To her surprise though, the person only imperceptibly shifted when they were hit, while Birdy was knocked off balance. She shook it off, apologized, and walked onto the stage. She was puzzled for a brief second as the lights flashed in her eyes, and then she started singing.

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Parker made another pass on her target, dropping another little bug on his body. Hardison had told her that the bugs were little microphones, that when bunched together in a relatively close space, amplified a persons speech enough to be recorded. This was the last of her bugs, and she dropped it without hesitation. She heard him talking on his cell-phone for a few seconds. Harold sounded a little distressed, and from what Parker could tell, not happy about what he needed to do.

Parker only got "kill the singer", and "Yes, Mistress" with a defeated sigh. Parker walked away, and started talking just loud enough to get picked up by Hardison's little ear mics.

"I think I just heard him say that he was going to kill the singer." She continued walking until she got to the bottom of the ladder that led up to the catwalk. She climbed up the ladder skillfully, and then walked a little ways and sat down.

Nate was the first to respond to her comment. "Did you get all of the mics on him."

"They should of all been on him, you'll need to ask Hardison if they were on yet. He said it just as I walked by." She could tell that her response was what he needed and she decided to relax by hanging upside down from off the catwalk to watch the rest of the concert from her vantage point.

Not long after she got settled in, another person, rather heavy person, came up ladder and walked to the middle of the area, just above where Parker was hanging. She heard the person set up something on the rail, and she looked up. There resting lightly on the rail was a hunting rifle, an intense looking woman sitting there waiting to shoot. Parker was puzzled at what she saw, the vibrations when the woman had come up had told her that the person had to have weighed at least 500 pounds. But the woman that stood above her looked as if Weight Watchers was her job.

Parker decided to do something, and so she pulled out her tazer, flipped up behind the shooter, and applied a full charge to the back of woman's neck. The extra pressure that the woman put on the railing was enough for it to break under the pressure. She fell forward, and plummeted to the stage, landing right behind Arita.

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Birdy paused for a few seconds when she heard a loud crash behind her, she looked around to see what had made the sound and noticed the gaping hole in the floor of the stage that was five feet away from her. The whole crowd seemed to be just as surprised at she was at the gaping hole in the floor, and the loud crash that had echoed over the sound of the loudspeakers, and the roar of the crowd. She stopped singing and walked over to the whole. She looked down in the whole and tried to make sense out of the jumble of pink fluffiness that assaulted her eyes.

She peered a little harder into the hole, and noticed that something was moving down there. The only way that she could figure it out was that whatever had fallen was heavy, and it had fallen into a storage space that was full of extremely fluffy, pink, and entirely too feminine.

The last thought crossed her mind as the thing that was down in the whole stood up, and jumped up onto the stage. The crowd hushed as it watched the now pink monstrosity fly into the air, and land on the stage opposite of where Birdy was standing. Birdy stood there semi-shocked until she realized that the pink blob was now aiming a gun at her from under the cover of tight wrap of light pink tulle. She started running off stage, and just barely got out of the view of the audience when the gun fired. The bullet tagged her in the back of her neck, and ricocheted into the pulley system for the stages curtains. Birdy found a little bit of cover, and waited until all of the curtains fell to the ground. Elliot was already on stage trying to take out the pink blob, but he was easily being out matched. He got knocked flying across the stage and into Birdy, who caught him easily and set his unconscious body on the floor.

Birdy stretched a little as she switched into her battle suit, and watched the gun line up for another shot. This time the bullet hit her hand as she launched into a full sprint and shoulder tackled the thing into a set piece. She was thrown off violently and went sailing into the rafters, passing a rather startled Parker on the way up. She looked up, grabbed a bar and swung herself back down at twice the speed that she had been launched. She hit the marionettes shoulders as she put both of her feet into the landing. For a second, she got the thrill of skiing, before she was forced jump off from the rapidly de-accelerating body.

Birdy had known that it was pretty powerful marionette when she had started, but she hadn't realized just how life like it looked. This thing put Undine to shame in how lifelike it was, and it was larger and possibly more powerful than the other marionette. Birdy was not looking forward to the upcoming battle with this thing.

She didn't have to worry though because one of the hanging stage light structures suddenly swung down hitting the marionette's head and almost decapitated it. Birdy could not believe her luck, until she looked up and saw that Parker was hanging off the wall holding what looked like a very large pair of wire cutters.

Birdy winked and walked off of the stage. As soon as she found some cover, she switched with Tsutomu. Tsutomu walked away, though he was making comments about not leaving the marionette there.

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Hardison watched the mass hysteria that happened when everyone in the audience heard the gunshots. He wasn't too happy about the situation either, as he quickly packed up his computer and moved himself up to the box that Nate and Sophie were sitting in high above the stage.

As soon as he got there he walked in and saw that Sophie was hysterically talking to someone on the phone line. Hardison motioned, asking silently what she was doing, and Nate mouthed the word police. When Sophie got done with the phone, she set it down. There was a large crash on stage that had caused everybody to jump, and look down at the curtains again. Nate made a roll call, and got everybody but Elliot. Parker did sound a little out of breath, and Hardison had to ask if everything was okay. Parker started on a rather long tirade about what had happened, although nobody believed the heavy destruction part until they all walked on stage.

Harold Wright stepped outside to get away from all of the chaos. His mind was reeling from what he had just been forced to do. He was just happy that the mistress would transfer more money into his account. The marionette wasn't important, and he was glad to be rid of it. He was just about to his car when he was grabbed from behind, handcuffed, and thrown in the back of a police car.

Elliot woke up on Nate's couch, a little disoriented. He hadn't been knocked out since he had been in Puerto Rico a few years ago. He did a quick check on himself, and noticed that quite a few of his ribs were broken, but they were healing rather splendidly. He could hear Nate, Sophie, and Hardison talking about the job.

"This went a lot easier than I thought it would." Nate said as he took a swig from his cup of liquor.

"It was pure luck that we caught what he said, and were able to give the evidence to the police." Hardison seemed a little distracted as he said this.

"Too bad Elliot got hurt. Poor thing." Came Sophie's concerned reply. "That and Arita disappeared, who knows if she's still alive."

"She's still alive, there is quite a lot of fight in that one" Elliot said out loud, surprising everyone else in the room.


	5. Chapter 5

Parker watched very carefully, as her target stepped outside of the building across the street from where she lay half hidden by an old rusted out air conditioning unit that some on had left to rust on top of the English building for the local college. Her binoculars had been a gift from Hardison, and she used their special electronic zoom lenses to try and observe her target. Though the target was following his usual routes, Parker noted that the target had a bad habit of talking to himself. It was as though he was talking to another person, but more than half of what he said was unintelligible from what she could out from the movement of his lips.

Parker had been convinced that there was now a ninja living in the apartment that was just down the hall from where Nate's apartment lied. His name is Senkawa Tsutomu. Though the info that Hardison had gathered on the kid had been intriguing, his actions had set off her curiosity. He seemed to have a hidden confidence that would appear at the weirdest of times, almost like an alternate personality but one more in tune with his consciousness. No one else had believed her, and the only one that could actually prove that he was a ninja had never met the kid. It was a good thing that the binoculars had camcorder ability, since she was able to gather data to show Elliot that Tsutomu was a ninja, one that had been sent to spy on the team.

Parker kept her vigil on him for the entire day, even when he was in the classroom. She had bugged every one of the classes that he was taking and had been listening closely to his one sided dialogue.

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Tsutomu had been a little edgy all day long, wondering what was bothering him. It was true that occasionally he would share Birdy's genetically enhanced senses, but today something had set of his own senses. He couldn't quite tell what had set it off until Birdy had commented Parker, the curious thief of Nate's Team, had been following them for a couple of days now. Tsutomu relaxed just a little; at least enough to not be on edge all of the time. He knew that Parker wasn't evil and wasn't trying to kill him, like any alien that seemed to land on thiS planet.

He proceeded quietly to and from his classes, making sure to keep his movement regular. Birdy would occasionally laugh at Parker's attempts to observe Tsutomu. Though after a few days of this, Tsutomu got used to the observation and Parker's tricks.

On the other hand, he had been preoccupied with the amount of loafing around that Birdy had been doing lately. She was pretty sure that every body now believed that her disguise had been killed. Tsutomu was mostly worried about her sedentary lifestyle, without the usual amount of exercise that she needed she had started to put on a few pounds. Tsutomu had tried his best to convince her that she needed more exercise but it would take one of her managers to push her in that direction.

In the mean time, Tsutomu had been relatively busy with his classes. Not that any of the material was hard; it was just a small bit of language barrier that kept him from excelling in his classes. Well that and the fact that when Birdy was bored, she would randomly interject answers, at least when she knew an answer. His math, science, and physics classes were Birdy's most mentally active periods of the week. Although what she termed easy, he termed challenging. His other classes often threw Birdy for a loop though. She would always sleep through his English Literature class, and was often baffled at what was considered classic reading material. She also couldn't understand Earth's fascination with art that often didn't make sense; splashes of random color seemed to make the best Art. Tsutomu had accidently fell asleep at his easel one day in art class, and had woken up to find that Birdy had painted a copy of the command tower that she worked at on her planet. Tsutomu had gotten and A, but was kind of worried that someone would of noticed that he was snoring as Birdy "ghost" painted.

After his classes were done, he walked the few blocks back to his apartment. Birdy kept up her dialogue, until she went quiet for a few minutes. Tsutomu actually had a few moments of silent contemplation before he got curious enough to act about the silence.

"Why have you been so silent for the last few minutes?" Tsutomu asked as he got to opposite side of a rather congested sidewalk.

"Parker has stepped up her game. It's like she just disappeared, and that's a kind of hard to do how close she had been tailing us for the last block or two." Tsutomu had noticed that Birdy had been getting more and more intrigued by Parker. Especially ever since she ended up taking out that pink monstrosity of a marionette.

A commotion on the street caught Tsutomu's attention and he looked over to see a black suburban weaving quickly through traffic. Tsutomu sensed that Birdy had tensed up, and had taken control of his body to move them into a dark alleyway, and behind a dumpster. Birdy switched places with Tsutomu, threw what looked to be a large cloak over herself, and then took off up onto to the rooftops to follow the black suburban.

"Birdy, you shouldn't be doing this in the daylight." Tsutomu protested.

"Sorry, but can't help it. Parker looked like she had been kidnapped. Don't worry about being seen, the cloak makes us less visible in the daylight as long as we move fast enough." Birdy finished talking, and picked up more speed as she entered the warehouse district.

After going a few blocks, it turned into an old looking warehouse that had an old faded decal of a boat on one of the doors. The doors opened up surprisingly quickly for how old the door looked, and the SUV drove through it and stopped on the other side. The doors closed again, and Tsutomu caught the sound of mechanics of some kind coming from the doors.

Birdy had slowed down, and was working on getting on top of the without causing a sound. Once she got most of the way up the building, she noticed that one of the windows was open just a little. She checked through the window to make sure no one was on the other side, and then she opened the window and climbed through. There was a walkway that was just below the window, she stepped silently on it, and then jumped up to the top of the raptors.

Tsutomu noticed that the thugs had incapacitated Parker, and she lay unconscious across one of their shoulders. They walked to the back of the warehouse and entered a small set of rooms. Birdy followed closely behind them, and once they had entered she dropped to the floor and snuck up to the door. The men inside were quiet, but from the sound of their shuffling they were agitated about something. After another few minutes they exited the room, Birdy took this chance to pull the window out of its frame. The sound of the frame being ripped out set off an alarm inside the building, and the thugs quickly ran back into the room.

Birdy jumped through the hole in the wall, ready for battle. The first thug tried to truck stick her, but he was knocked unconscious and through the door when Birdy backhanded his attempt. The rest of the thugs decided to try a different tactic and started to pull out firearms. Birdy rushed forward, grabbed the next guy and chucked him through the open window. There was only one thug left, one thug that was shakily holding his gun out before him trying to work his sweaty hands around the handle. The gun went off, Birdy cursed and made sure that the bullet hit her shoulder. The bullet ricocheted, hitting the only light in the room sending the whole room into the darkness.

Another flash came from the muzzle before the thug was incapacitated. Birdy picked up the unconscious form on the chair, and walked out of the warehouse.

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Parker was falling in and out of sleep, sometimes waking up from a short jolt or the rush of the wind through her hair. She was having a hard time keeping control of any of her thoughts, and that frustrated her even more. A splitting headache accompanied her every time she woke up and she couldn't make sense of her surroundings. After what seemed to be an eternity she finally noticed that the rhythm of movement had changed.

She looked up in a moment of clarity, and saw the form of her rescuer. All covered in a shadowy and almost indiscreet substance, only the slanted eyes of her rescuer to be seen. The ninja had saved her.

"W…w….w….why d….d…did y..you save me?" she asked softly, trying not to upset her headache more than it had already been.

"A friend saw what happened, and asked me to come." He responded stiffly, after a long pause.

"Was it Elliot?" she asked.

"No." his response this time was immediate and seemed to have a sense of humor to it.

"Then who?" she asked this time a little more forcefully, which then set off her headache.

"I am not at liberty to tell." Again his response took a little time. "Just be satisfied to know that you are safe."

Still curious, but unable to hold onto consciousness any longer, Parker once again fell into a deep sleep.

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"Birdy, I can't believe you did that. I thought that your weren't supposed to get involved with the affairs of the indigenous species." Tsutomu was upset, very upset. Birdy had taken almost too many risks this time, and they had almost revealed their secret. The thugs they had beaten had been normal thugs too, normal humans and Birdy had taken them out like they were flies.

"Relax, I've done worse back in Japan." Birdy replied, trying to come up with an excuse that would calm Tsutomu down.

"Yes, and luckily it always had some alien at the end of it. This time there was no alien." Tsutomu said back forcefully.

"I know, but I had to do something. I couldn't let them take her." Birdy replied again, this time a little more sure in her argument.

"Then why didn't you call Nate, and let him handle the problem. It seems to me that his team can handle, and have handled situations like this before." Tsutomu's argument was sound and Birdy went silent for a few moments.

"I owed Parker, since she took out that marionette on that stage. That, and I didn't want Nate to realize that I'm still alive yet." Birdy had humbled herself just a little on that comment and it was now Tsutomu's turn to pause.

"Your starting to get attached to these people aren't you?" Tsutomu asked quietly.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Birdy's reply confirmed Tsutomu's suspicions.

"Alright, I can see why you did it, but why did we switch places. Parker probably thinks I'm some sort of ninja now."

"It's a game, can't you tell. It's relaxing and it keeps my mind occupied. Also, if Parker believes you're a ninja, then she will probably leave you alone from now on." Birdy was pretty sure that would calm him down, but she wasn't entirely sure about her last statement.

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Parker had succeeded in placing a hidden camera inside of Tsutomu's apartment, and she had just gotten back to Nate's apartment and flipped on the view from the camera. She watched her target pace around the room talking to himself, and Parker thought to herself that she would need to place a microphone in there next time.

The target kept pacing until he seemed to get tired and walked over to the window; he opened it and looked out for a second. The next second his whole body rippled, and started changing into a taller more feminine form with white and pink hair, after the full change happened the now female individual jumped to the window seal. After a short pause to let the hair flow through her hair, she jumped up and out to the top of the next building.

Parker stepped back from the monitor, hit the rewind button and watched the change happen again and again. Parker thought about this for a moment longer, suspicion and excitement flowing through her thoughts.


	6. Chapter 6

"Hahaha, you never told me how you escaped from me when we were in Tuscany." Nate laughed.

"What's the point of going out to eat together if you're just going to find my failures amusing." Sophie pouted. They were together at a rather fancy restaurant, just passing their time until their mark wandered in for his dinner appointment with a "friend" of his.

"You're the one who fell into that trap my dear." Nate responded, taking another drink from his glass. Sophie gave him a look of disapproval, and turned back to scanning the other patrons of the restaurant. Everybody here were perfect for the taking, and as easy to read as a childrens book. Each of the waiters would often look back at the kitchen awkwardly whenever one of the customers asked to give their compliments to the chef. The guy that was sitting alone closest to the exit had a look on his face that he had just lost something, probably a bad business deal or a divorce.

"I wonder what's the deal with the chef?" Nate asked, wondering why their order was so late.

"He's probably gone, or to drunk to care. All of the waiters are getting more and more flustered about something." Sophie responded taking a shallow sip from her wine.

Their mark walked in fashionably late with a rather plain looking man that was under dressed for his current environment. They sat down at a reserved table that was just a booth away from where Sophie and Nate were sitting. They had placed several small bugs around his current booth, and they were waiting for their conversation to begin.

"Why did you bring me to this place," the man with the gray hoodie hissed. "You know I don't like to be around filthy humans."

"Relax, It's good for you. You need to be comfortable around people if your going to get ahead in this world." Replied his well dressed companion.

"Well at least warn me of the dress code." The man with the gray hoodie was not impressed and it was easy to tell that his speech pattern was not used to English.

"Do you recognize the accent?" Nate asked Sophie quietly.

"No, I've never heard anything like this," Sophie replied, sounding a little perplexed.

"So are we guaranteed your support with this project?" The mark asked forcefully.

"You have my support as long as you guarantee my families identity here on this planet," hissed the man sitting across from him.

"Oh you can trust me with that. As long as you provide my agents with the necessary supplies you won't have to worry." Said the mark, with a peculiarly odd grin on his face. After that the mysterious man with the gray hoodie left the restaurant, and left the mark staring off into space with the same odd smile painted across his face.

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When Nate and Sophie returned to headquarters, the walked in on Elliot and Parker argueing.

"He is too a Ninja." Parker said emphatically, stamping her foot down to try to prove a point.

"I'm telling you he's not. His eyes, stance, and his shoes are all wrong for him to be one." Elliot said, turning back to his special sandwich that he was making.

"What if he was trained to look normal?" Parker demanded.

"Then you wouldn't even be able to tell if he were one then." Elliot concluded.

"How would you know what a ninja looks like?" Hardison asked.

"Sore wa Himitsu Desu." Responded Elliot calmly. He turned back to his sandwich, finishing it off by spritzing it with some lime juice and then placing the top of and anything goes bagel on the top. He grabbed hold of the plate before his sandwich could disappear, and proceeded to clean up after himself one handed.

"I'm still not sure about going after this guy. If this goes wrong, it could go bad for all of us." Elliot stated, as he sat down at the counter to enjoy his sandwich.

"He does have a point. Nate, are you sure we should be doing this one." Sophie said.

"Come on guys, we've taken on big marks before. What makes this one more dangerous?" Nate asked.

"For one, this guy is invisible. Pretty much the deep dark in the C.I.A, this guy only came onto our radar when he reacted to the recent fall our last mark." Hardison responded.

"Deep dark is right." Elliot snorted. "This is the guy they put in charge of operations that are too bloody for any army. I've seen his crew from a distance before, they make me look like I'm in preschool." Elliot said around bites of his sandwich.

"Then why are we after this guy?" Parker asked.

"This guy has come up on my radar because this man is a child-molester." Hardison stated. "There are countless reports filed, and then dropped after the parents suddenly get a very large sum of money."

"Why doesn't he just go after orphans then?" Parker sneered.

"It seems he has a fancy for spoiled, and chubby youth." Hardison responded, putting up several images of the mark's victims.

"Those poor kids." Sophie gasped, putting her hand to her mouth.

"How do we take down a guy like this?" Parker asked.

"The best way is to strand him, and then pull out the rug from underneath him." Nate replied.

"How do you plan on doing this?" Hardison asked.

"We're going to steal the director of the C.I.A." Nate stated as he grabbed his jacket and walked out of the door.

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Ankerman stepped out of the restaurant happy that the business deal had gone well. It really cost him nothing to play with the lives of extra-terrestrials, and he had so much to gain from their fantastic technology. There really wasn't anyone that could stand up to his team anymore, especially now with the acquired tech from this new client. The "Woman on the Roof" would have to think twice about taking on his team this time. His career had pretty much tanked after the incident in Japan, and there wasn't anything he would enjoy more than to finally show up the individual that had caused it.

As he walked down the street he caught sight of an individual he recognized from Japan. The boy that had always appeared around the "Woman on the Roof" had walked past him as he crossed the street. As soon as he got to the other side his phone rang, he answered it and smiled. Maybe I don't need to go back to Japan for revenge after all.

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Tsutomu stepped out of his first class of the day, his whirling from trying to make sense of all the jumbled knowledge that had been launched at him in the last hour. His English class failed to make any sense to him, there seemed to be a sense of superiority to the viewpoint of people in this country. Either way it didn't make sense to him, the class left him confused for a few minutes before Birdy took control of the body and dropped him to the ground. After hitting the ground he noticed that dart had passed within centimeters of him and had shattered against the brick of the school commons.

"Birdy!" Tsutomu yiped, jumping up and running around to the other side of the building. He kept running until Birdy dropped him to the ground again, and rolled themselves under a large shrubbery.

"Running away isn't going help anything." Birdy pronounced forcefully, trying to see/hear if the hunter was near.

"Why am I being attacked?" Tsutomu asked in a high pitched worried tone.

"Who knows?" The simple response did nothing to settle Tsutomu's nerves.

"Shouldn't we be running?" He asked quietly, whispering to himself.

"Not until we gain more info on the situation. If we can spot the shooter than we can best decide where we should run to escape." she said calmly. Tsutomu wondered why she could stay this calm, he was kind of expecting her to change back and take out the sorry lot that had shot at them.

Tsutomu got an idea, reached into his backpack, and drew out one of his textbooks. He lobbed it up and out of the bush. It flew threw the air for a few seconds before a thump was heard and it fell to the ground. Birdy, was able to follow the path of the dart over to where the shooter was positioned.

"He's all but got us trapped." Birdy hissed. Tsutomu looked around and decided the best thing to do was to crawl under the bushes until he came to the corner of the building. Once he got there he carefully edged his way around the corner, taking a relaxed breath.

"Why are you crawling in the bushes?" came a familiar voice. Tsutomu looked up to see Parker standing there with an amused look on her face. Tsutomu wasn't sure what he needed to do so he got up and dusted himself off a bit.

"I was working on a school project." he said half halfheartedly, looking away when he said it.

"Oh, Ok sure." Parker responded still looking amused. Tsutomu wasn't sure what to do now and his pause was interrupted a sharp pain in his shoulder. He looked over to see a dart embedded in his arm. The relaxant started working instantly and he fell over onto Parker.

"Hey." Parker shouted as he collapsed just barely catching him before he hit the ground. Tsutomu blacked out, wondering why Parker smelled like sauerkraut.

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"So you're saying that Tsutomu is being attacked?" Nate asked, looking down at the limp form of the same Tsutomu laying before him on the floor. Elliot looked at the dart that they had pulled from the unconscious boys arm.

"This is professional stuff, the dart is inconspicuous but the relaxant in it is only used by the top agencies in the world. It's most likely from the C.I.A, or some other American operations. Wonder what the kid did to get them after him?" Elliot commented, twirling the dart in his hands, before he threw it across the room hitting Hardison in the leg.

"Hey." Hardison said before he fainted himself, landing unceremoniously on the floor. Elliot smirked before he got up and retrieved the dart. He looked at it a bit more closely, and noticed that it had a layered vial that emptied a needed amount on contact. The harder the hit, the more it would release.

"The gun that was used had to be pretty heavy to be able to launch this. I've only seen darts for this used on animals." Elliot continued giving Tsutomu a skeptical look.

"So what are we going to do with him?" Parker asked. She had picked up Hardison after he had passed out, and had put him on a couch.

"Well, the only agents in the area that we know of is that of our current target. Maybe we can use him as bait." Nate replied.

"That hardly sounds fair for the poor boy, what is he going to tell his parents." Sophie said.

"Well, if we do it quick before he wakes up then he won't know either way." He replied with an evil smile on his face.


End file.
